Coming To Your Home: A Battery The Size Of A Fridge
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For now, the type of batteries we commonly use can easily fit in one hand. Will there come a day when we will rely on one that is the size of a fridge?
That’s the pitch that California battery developer, Imergy Power Systems, will be pushing as the startup begins to roll out what’s called flow battery next year. The company announced its new name and executive team on Monday, after it spent nearly 10 years as Deeya Energy.
The new executive team includes CEO Bill Watkins, who headed LED chip developer Bridgelux and before that was the chief executive of hard drive maker Seagate Technology STX -0.3%.
Because the tanks are separate from the cell and require pipes to connect to one another, a flow battery system is bulky and not so portable. Flow battery proponents say the use of separate tanks makes it easier to size up and down the battery system — you use larger tanks if you want a more powerful battery.Flow battery, which is rechargeable, uses two tanks to contain the electrolyte and energy-storing materials, which flow into a two-part cell where they react with the electrodes to produce electricity. In contrast, in conventional batteries for our gadgets, the energy storage materials and electrolyte are enclosed in a cell.
A flow battery could use different types of energy-storing material in each tank. Some use iron in one and chromium in another, a combination that Deeya pursued before its research team began to explore the use of vanadium, which is a popular material for flow battery designs. Vanadium flow batteries, in general, are considered a more mature technology than zinc- or iron-based flow batteries, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit that serves the North American utility industry.
Armed with $10 million from existing investors earlier this year, Imergy executives say their researchers have figured out a way to produce powerful vanadium batteries by improving the electrolyte. The new electrolyte is increasing the amount of energy stored by 30% while using a low-grade vanadium that reduces the cost of electrolyte by 40%, said Tim Hennessy, executive vice president of marketing and sales at Fremont-based Imergy. The key is the use of a single acid rather than a mix of acids for the electrolyte, and that’s about as much as Hennessy is willing to divulge about the technology.
With the new chemical concoction, Imergy is setting out to cut the price of its batteries by around half to reach $300 per kilowatt hour by 2015.
“What the team has achieved is remarkable. There is simplicity to the designs,” said Ira Ehrenpreis, general partner at Technology Partners, one of Imergy’s investors.
When the company was still Deeya Energy, it was selling its iron-chromium flow batteries for off-grid uses by telecom companies in India, its sole target market. The company has since replaced them with the vanadium version. In all, it has sold 50 battery systems in Indian in the past two years. The company has a factory in India to assemble the battery systems and plans to deliver 20 units before the end of the year, Hennessy said.
Imergy is targeting more than just India and the off-grid market. It’s co-designing systems with Flextronics to introduce a 5-kilowatt (30 kilowatt-hour) system for the industrial and residential market in the second quarter of 2014. The 5-kilowatt system would be the size of a fridge.
The two companies also are working on a 250-kilowatt system that they will launch next October.
The use of large battery systems, whether as backup power during blackouts or as a way to store solar electricity for use at night, is uncommon. Battery developers and their investors are banking on their growing use, however, as solar panels become more widely installed and natural disasters prompt people to want their own power generation equipment. The key for mass adoption lies in driving down the prices of battery systems, no matter what types, because right now they are simply too expensive.
Because energy storage complements solar and wind energy production, solar and wind farm owners, as well as utilities, are looking at using storage to better manage renewable energy supply and demand. California is launching a program to require utilities to use energy storage. Germany and Japan offer incentives for their residents to pair energy storage with solar panels.
Imgery will be competing with many battery makers of all stripes for a share of this emerging energy storage market, from startups to large battery makers who are developing products to serve beyond their usual market of consumer electronics.
